The Mother Tongue is a 1990 book by Bill Bryson which compiles the history and origins of the English language and its various quirks.^[1] It is subtitled English And How It Got That Way. The book discusses the Indo-European origins of English, the growing status of English as a global language, the complex etymology of English words, the dialects of English, spelling reform, prescriptive grammar, and other topics including swearing. This account popularises the subject and makes it accessible to the lay reader, but it has been criticised for some inaccuracies, such as the perpetuation of several urban myths.^[2]

The Mother Tongue

First edition
Author	Bill Bryson
Language	English
Genre	Language
Publisher	William Morrow & Co (US) Hamish Hamilton (UK)
Publication date	July 1990
Media type	Print
Pages	279
ISBN	0-380-71543-0
OCLC	20934335
Dewey Decimal	420.9
LC Class	PE1072 .B76 1990

This book has also been published in the UK by Penguin Books under the title Mother Tongue: The English Language.

Bryson has since followed up this work with Made in America.